“Something I have never quite got my head around – how can you launder money through a loss-making enterprise? I’m assuming a club like Croydon Athletic is a money pit. You might get the supposed glory of funding a successful team in effect at no cost to yourself if the funding is the proceeds of crime (allegedly), but hasn’t the money just vanished into a black hole? I suppose it’s always possible that if you pay a player more than he could get at a slightly higher level he might look so good that someone from an even higher level will pay a fee for him, but that sounds like a bit of a punt as a means of laundering serious money.”

Every business has expenses and revenue. Let’s say the owners of a legitimate business put in £100,000 obtained from other criminal activity unrelated to the business, and earn £70,000 revenue from the legitimate business, they may have lost £30,000, but now have £70,000 in clean money instead of £100,000 in “dirty” money.

£30,000 is the “laundry bill” [:)]

Sports clubs are just one way of laundering money.

Property is another popular asset. If say a property worth £100,000 is bought for £150,000 with dirty money. If the property is sold a few years down the road for £120,000, that’s £120,000 of clean money as opposed to £100,000 of dirty money.

However, a lot of dirty money coming into a property market has the effect of pushing up prices, so it may well be that a few years down the road, the property is sold for £200,000, so even better, £200,000 of clean money rather than £100,000 of dirty money.

Many asset classes can be used to launder money, as can the financial markets and betting/gambling.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more dirty money flowing through the global financial system than clean money.